In Redskins’ Defeat, a Little Agony

Robert Griffin III's right knee gave out when he tried to reach for a bad shotgun snap with a little over six minutes remaining in the game.Credit
Al Bello/Getty Images

LANDOVER, Md. — Robert Griffin III lay on the 5-yard line, with the ball — and the Washington Redskins’ season — inches away from him. But Griffin did not reach to get it, did not even turn to try and swipe at it; he couldn’t. He did not want to let go of his right knee.

So Griffin held on, rolling ever so slightly in the chewed-up grass. His teammate Trent Williams screamed for team trainers to hurry onto the field, and minutes later Griffin finally rose, slowly and gingerly, before limping off to nervous cheers.

That scary sequence, as linebacker Lorenzo Alexander called it, served as a difficult coda for the Redskins fans at FedEx Field on Sunday who endured a doubly brutal finish: their team’s surprising season ended with a 24-14 loss to the Seattle Seahawks, while their wunderkind quarterback’s future was thrown into doubt because of another knee injury with about six minutes left in the game. Adding to the emotion was that many will question whether Griffin should have even been in the game.

One would understand, of course, if the fans around here were especially exasperated. This latest fall came with an especially cruel twist, coming just months after the Washington Nationals opted to shut down their sparkling young pitcher, Stephen Strasburg, because he was recovering from elbow surgery. With Strasburg idle, the Nationals — who won their division, just like the Redskins — lost in the first round of the playoffs, too.

But this time, even as the Redskins seemed to take the opposite approach — pushing Griffin, despite an obviously impaired leg — the plan backfired anyway. He was clearly not himself and the Seahawks sprinted past the Redskins. Seattle, and its young star quarterback Russell Wilson, will face Atlanta in a divisional round game Sunday.

What comes next for Griffin and Coach Mike Shanahan, however, is far murkier. Griffin, who first strained the lateral collateral ligament in the knee on Dec. 9, will have tests Monday but conceded after the game that he did not know how seriously he was injured and probably “did put myself at more risk by being out there.”

He added, though, that he never considered coming out of the game earlier because “I’m the best option for this team and that’s why I’m the starter.”

Shanahan essentially agreed with that sentiment, saying that he was in constant communication with Griffin during the game about whether Griffin’s knee — which he appeared to aggravate late in the first quarter — had become too limiting. According to Shanahan, Griffin drew a distinction between being hurt and being injured, with the former being a condition that would allow him to keep playing and the latter likely being “only if he can’t walk,” tight end Logan Paulsen said.

That sort of feeling was shared by several of Griffin’s other teammates, who roundly praised his fortitude. Still, Shanahan will certainly face questions about whether he should have overruled Griffin, particularly as it became more apparent that Griffin was hindered. Griffin finished Sunday’s game just 10-of-19 passing for 84 yards, throwing two touchdown passes and an interception. He was sacked twice and rushed only five times for 21 yards, about 30 yards fewer than his season average.

“I think everyone could see after the first quarter that he wasn’t exactly the same,” Shanahan said. “I still thought he could go in there and make the plays he was capable of making.”

Shanahan added, “I’ll probably second-guess myself.”

Griffin’s injury took much of the drama out of the much-anticipated battle between Griffin and Wilson. Comparisons between the two are inevitable if only because, at the most basic level, they are both mobile quarterbacks who showed unusual aplomb in leading their teams to unlikely surges during their rookie seasons.

Wilson finished the season with a passer rating of 100, which would have set a record for rookies in the N.F.L. — except that Griffin finished with a 102.4. Wilson tied Peyton Manning’s rookie record for touchdown passes with 26, with Griffin right behind at 20.

This was not a fair fight. Wilson, who finished the game 15-of-26 passing for 187 yards and a touchdown, had one more healthy knee than Griffin and he took full advantage, whizzing around the field for 67 rushing yards.

“It was more like a normal quarterback back there,” Seattle Coach Pete Carroll said of Griffin. “It certainly changes their team some because he is such a flyer.”

The treatment of Griffin’s initial knee injury was under scrutiny even before the game. Dr. James Andrews, the renowned orthopedist, who is one of Washington’s team physicians, was quoted in USA Today this past week refuting Shanahan’s claim that doctors had cleared Griffin to return to action almost immediately after he sustained his initial injury one month ago. Andrews added that he was worried about Griffin’s long-term prognosis.

In the aftermath of Sunday’s game, those worries are surely more widespread. After all, the Redskins — who built a 14-0 lead after the first quarter on a pair of 4-yard touchdown passes from Griffin — were exposed as punchless once he reinjured his knee. When Seattle pulled to 14-13 by halftime, it felt as if the Seahawks needed only to score once to win because Washington’s offense was as rickety as its quarterback.

Seattle running back Marshawn Lynch provided that score, bulling into the end zone on a 27-yard run midway through the fourth quarter, and the Redskins had no way back.

Now, their season is over. And the future of their franchise quarterback remains a great concern. How badly did he hurt his knee? And what does his determination to remain on the field Sunday show about how the Redskins should handle him in the future?

“There was no way I was coming out of that game,” Griffin said flatly, but depending on what his tests show, that will not answer the question that may linger for Shanahan all off-season: should Griffin have even had a choice?

A version of this article appears in print on January 7, 2013, on page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: In Redskins’ Defeat, a Little Agony. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe